h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Haven't seen bats flying around the house for years. I think there are two or three of them - hunting flying insects. And it's fairly cold and wet out there. So happy to see them! I love bats

I hope my brother's s*dding , Ruby, doesn't get them. She was snatching swallows out of the air yesterday.

How exciting

We used to get every* night in the summer in particular, when I lived at my Dad's, but they just utterly vanished at some point, certainly by the early 90's, they'd all vanished Used to be able to stand by the big window at the back of the house, and see them flying in and catching insects, often dozens of them it seemed... then they just werne't around anymore glad yours have come back Shall have to ask Father if he's seen any round recently ; maybe they're making a bit of a come back over the country

The bats have been having trouble with a global plague on both sides of the Atlantic

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_d91106eb-886b-5889-8acf-6ed21943ffb1.html

I've a hunch this may be also related to honeybee die-offs and perhaps vectored by pollen and nectar providers bats and honeybees use in common.

It's good to 'see' you again Tib. How are things going for you now?

Hw lovely, there is/was a roost not too far from me but I haven't seen any around for a year or two. They seem to come out on warm humid nights, a bit like swifts in the day time and we haven't had many of those this year either with this silly weather.

Take care,

Websailor

Hi 2legs, ITIWBS and Websailor

It's been so cold and wet here lately, I've been surprised to see them out the last 3 evenings. There've been more insects about than I've seen for a long time (apart from pollen beetles, which have been strangely absent this summer). You could be right ITIWBS, but I think a key reason for the lack of bats in British gardens, is also the lack of food - ie moths. Until a few years ago, if you opened a window in a lit room, you'd have a virtual swarm of moths flying around, bouncing off the lights. If you went for a drive, day or night, the car windscreen would be coated in dead flying insects. Now there seem hardly any. Pesticides, GM crops, destroyed hedge-rows, mown grass verges - that is: poisons, starvation and lack of habitat. It's no way to look after bats or other wild-life!

You are so right Tib, we are wrecking the planet at an alarming rate, and although hundreds of thousands of people world wide are sounding alarm bells, no-one sees to be taking any notice.

I don't like to think of my granddaughter's future to be honest, but we mustn't give up hope.

Websailor

http://honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov/News.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070223-bees_2.html

https://news.change.org/stories/u-n-report-honeybee-die-off-is-now-a-global-problem




On the honeybee die-off problem, the earliest notes I can recall date to the early 1990s, during the early start up phase of creation of the combined USA - Russian Federation international space program.

A Russian cosmonaut who'd been stranded aboard the MIR space station for a year asked for some honey on a re-supply mission and the Russians were unable to find any in their own market place, so NASA shipped them a consignment.




This is about the same period as the bats die off began, and though bats and honeybees have very little in common, one of the most important things they have got in common are that both include premiere pollinator species.




I used to get a considerable kick out of watching them locally, fishing down at the quay just after nightfall.

The park streetlamps attracted insects, which in turn attracted bats.

Next, I'd be seeing them abruptly jumping up a foot or so while in flight, to miss fish lines in the water, and on one occasion, first it was a big mama bat adjusting her altitude that way to miss a fishing line, then four little baby bats came along in single file behind, the latter having already adjusted their altitude to match the mama bat in the lead.




Though I've recently seen a few bats occasionally, locally, perhaps indicating they're beginning to recover from the white nose plague, its still very infrequent, while they were once a commonplace.

I used to have them nightly at my place, where first a few bats would discover a swarm of insects and next, a small insectivorous night flying raptor called a nighthawk would come and chase them away, taking advantage of spotting by the bats to find their own insects.




I've seen a little material suggesting that the honeybees problems may be related to navigational errors predicated in their solar sensitivity.

That might explain why blue mason bees (or orchard bees) are weathering the storm a little better than the honeybees, given that the mason bees have extraordinarily good UVA/UVB shielding, while common honeybees have almost none.




As ecological catastrophe goes, wide scale loss of pollinators is one one of the most terrible things that can happen.

Sorry about the broken link.

This may get it.




http://www.networkbees.com/march_2011_news_networkbees.html




Second listing.